Star Wars Still Isn’t It

The new Star Wars trailer dropped and everyone’s losing their minds, and I’m sitting here with nothing. No spark, no anticipation, nothing at all. Star Wars just doesn’t work for me, never has, and a shiny new trailer isn’t changing that.

Part of it is that I’ve always found the whole thing kind of embarrassing. Lightsabers don’t make sense as weapons—they’re inherently absurd—and apparently now they have little glowing testicles coming off the hilt. Somehow that’s worse. Jar Jar Binks was so tedious I couldn’t even work up proper hatred for him. The classic characters feel like they’re from another era. Yoda’s a puppet. Vader’s been through so many revisions he’s basically a different character than the one people pretend to love.

I should like this. I genuinely like rebellion stories—in film, in games, in books. Theoretically Star Wars is tailor-made for me. But the moment it starts, something breaks. It doesn’t land. It’s not a quality problem exactly; it’s just that it’s not for me. And at some point you stop fighting that and accept it.

So enjoy the hype, everyone. Enjoy the December premiere. Star Wars stopped being cool in 1983 though, and J.J. Abrams isn’t going to fix that. Game of Thrones is where the actual compelling stuff is happening.